Mirage
by Chibijed
Summary: Sano tries to cope after Saitoh's


DISCLAIMER: RK belongs to the great Watsuki Nobuhiro. Saitoh and Sano as well as the other RK characters I mentioned in my fic belongs to him. I am merely borrowing them for my perverted amusement. No profit here...just sore fingers and an aching back.  
WARNING: This is a yaoi, lemonish fic, also slightly OOC so if you're not into male and male relationship you better take a hike because I don't want to sully your pure and virginal mind (he!he!he)! So no flames, you've been warned, ne?!!  
PAIRING: Saitoh x Sano (4-ever!)  
TITLE: Mirage   
  
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"The sky, stabbed by a rusty knife, bleeds midnight as through the window.  
Your bare feet slap the floor as you walk to the table and drink warm beer from a tin mug.  
I sniff the sausages you've laid beside the boiled eggs and hard bread.  
Are they as old as the time I told you to come with me?" -------Ai  
****************************************  
  
A lone tall man walks with unconscious grace among the throng of late night revelers in that seedy part of Tokyo, walking with an air of detachment, walking as if he would like to lose himself in the anonymity of the apathetic crowd.   
  
His dark thoughts are well reflected on his face, a face that would have been considered quite attractive, even downright handsome if not marred by a heavy frown and etched with suffering that clouded his usually bright and cocky gaze.   
  
If one is brave enough to walk close to him, he will hear the fierce looking young man muttering underneath his breath. A litany of ahous, baka, stupid, rooster head, moron ---again and again, unceasingly heaping curses on some unlucky individual, so it seems.  
  
Sanosuke Sagara, or Sano to his friends, finds himself doing it again...walking around Tokyo late at night looking for something or someone. Night after night he would visit the hell holes Tokyo have in abundance vainly searching for any sign or news about a certain praying mantis-faced policeman. But after months of desperate scrounging for clues he is about ready to give up and admit to himself that once again he was late, too late to make any difference.  
  
Yet something within himself refuses to give up until he has found concrete evidence that Hajime is d....  
  
Shit!!!  
  
He couldn't even bring himself to think about that particular possibility.  
  
K'so...no, I will find him alive and pompously well, laughing his butt off for worrying me!  
  
His friends are quite concerned with his peculiar behavior these days, he rarely eats and he seldom sleeps. This, for Sano, is a rarity indeed; they know him as a loafer--- content to either gamble or sleep. But sleeping has became a dreaded activity for every time he closes his eyes, he could see him vanishing--- the explosion and debris obscuring his tall and lithe frame from Sano's eyes...his amber eyes still impassive in the face of eminent death.  
  
Sano could hear himself screaming his name...SAITOH!!!  
  
A name that leaves a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. He was not only mourning for the loss of his lover but also the fact that even at the very end, he was not allowed to call his lover by his first name, to say what he really wanted to say, hindered by the others' presence....  
  
Sano sighed wearily. Another day had passed without any respite for his tired and aching body, another day of wondering what could have been if only he ignored that high-and-mighty idiot's instructions and leapt over that burning inferno and dragged his old ass back forcibly whether he likes it or not.  
  
Sano shuffled along on leaden feet thinking about the little ironies of life. He and Saitoh Hajime met first as adversaries---he was the bait that Saitoh dangled over Kenshin to test the latter's battle prowess. Sano's arrogance and brashness earned him a sound beating and a scar on his left shoulder just below his collarbone that still twinges during cold weather.  
  
He remembered how 'Jime would tease him about the scar when they were finally together, just after he decided to follow Kenshin to Kyoto, about how he marked Sano as his own knowing that someday the rooster head would realize that Saitoh Hajime owns him, body and soul.  
  
A bittersweet smile marked his usually cheerful face at the thought of their too brief time together. He remembered pestering 'Jime to let him go with Kenshin to Kyoto and when they met again in that jail cell with that baka broomhead called Chou, Sano realized then that his antagonism hid a deeper emotion, an emotion that he was afraid 'Jime wouldn't appreciate and would just discard carelessly.  
  
But by all the gods in heaven, that flinty-eyed, psychotic, ex-Shinsengumi captain actually accepted his advances and returned them with enthusiasm (if one could call Saitoh's subtle acceptance enthusiastic!).   
  
They only had one goddamn night but one night is enough to forever change his life. He could still taste 'Jime's kisses plundering his lips, eating him up, as if the Wolf of Mibu would like to merge with him, to suck him in ---body and soul and never let go.  
  
Sano wouldn't have believed, not for a million years, if he hadn't seen or experienced it himself, that the famed cold and heartless Wolf of Mibu could burn so wild and so free.  
  
Two bodies writhing in excitement, so intertwined that one couldn't distinguish where one began and the other ended. The Wolf of Mibu's pale skin blending with Sanosuke's golden hue. The embrace so tight that each could feel the other's heartbeat thrumming all over their bodies. Sanosuke gasped with pleasure as Saitoh pounded inside him hard. He could feel his lover's long and tapered fingers digging into the fleshy part of his hips, anchoring him against the strong thrust of the gotatsu master. He could feel the pleasure gathering in his loins as he slowly rubbed his hardness against Saitoh's stomach, relishing the friction of skin against skin, the hard muscular abdomen rubbing against his stiff and aching protuberance. Saitoh let go of his hips to encircle his hardness, pumping it to the rhythm of his thrusts, stroking him hard and relentlessly. Sano could no longer contain the twin sensation bombarding his body --- the rough caresses applied on his hardened length and the steady thrusts against his pleasure center. His grip on Saitoh's shoulder tightened as he neared his culmination also feeling Saitoh's impending climax by the way the other pounded into him with nearly desperate speed. The stillness of the night was shattered by a guttural moan from Saitoh and a scream of exultation and confession from Sanosuke as he finally gives in to the onrushing tide  
"Ahhh...Saitohhhhhhhhhhh...ai shiteru!!!!"  
  
  
Sano, still wrapped up in his bittersweet remembrances, failed to notice a lone figure following his restless wandering from a safe distance. The figure skillfully weaves in and out of the milling throng, keeping a careful eye on the rooster head. The man is dressed entirely in black, blending well with the shadows cast by the pale moonlight. The only slash of color that can be seen in that silent figure are golden eyes, narrowed dangerously. Smoke curls up and floats away from the steady puff that he gives the cigarette dangling between his cruel, thin lips as he silently observed the drooping and hunched figure of his quarry.  
  
**************************************  
  
Sano turned a corner and headed towards the bridge back to Kouru's dojo not wanting to spend another lonely night in his flea infested apartment. He would rather listen to the raccoon-faced girl giving him hell than stare at the four silent walls of his house, tormented by his thoughts and recriminations.  
  
He trudged on but paused when he reached the bridge. He looked at the slow flowing water intently wishing that he has the guts to just end everything there and then but Sanosuke Sagara does not believe in taking the easy way out. It's much more suitable that he die slowly day after day, his whole body bleeding from undetected wounds, wounds inflicted not by a sharp blade but by sharper memories.  
  
For a long time, he just stood there looking at the river but not really seeing it---instead his vision is filled by one man who ceaselessly torments him. His memories of Hajime is so fresh that he could have sworn that he almost smell his cigarette, that distinctive aroma that he would forever linked with 'Jime...almost....  
  
"You're not thinking of further polluting this river by throwing your lazy carcass in it, would you, ahou?" a dry voice spoke from the patch of darkness Sano had just passed on his way to the bridge.  
  
Sano refused to turn his head not wanting to end this illusion too soon, wanting these fleeting moments with 'Jime to last. He had countless moments like these ---of what he now calls "Saitoh Hajime Hauntings," that he wasn't fazed with this new vision.  
  
"'Jime...I know this isn't real at all but even dead you're still one arrogant bastard!" Sano addressed the phantom voice.  
"No," he continued further, " am not going to kill myself...that would be so damn pointless now...I didn't do shit before so why do anything now...."  
  
"Why do you think I'm just an apparition?" was the interested reply.  
  
"Come on man, I've had this conversations before, fucking hundreds of them...I even begged for you to stay, didn't I? But no...you left...everybody leaves me eventually...." Sano answered bitterly not knowing that tears coursed down his pale face.  
  
With an impatient gesture he wiped his face, scrubbing his eyes frantically.  
  
"I will not cry...I refuse to cry...tears would only prove that I'm weak...just like what Hajime said...I'm nothing but a weak, stupid, fuckin' rooster head!" he tried to chuckle but it came out as a sob.  
  
Sanosuke gripped the wooden railings of the bridge with enough force as to whiten his knuckles,pain shooting up his injured hand ---the hand that had failed to kill his, their enemy...the hand that let Hajime die.  
  
"Weak...I'm weak...too damn weak...." he murmured to himself.  
  
He was so wrapped up in his misery that he was unaware of the slight shifting of the shadows by the bridge...of silent footsteps traversing the said bridge and then a pair of arms clasped him tight.  
  
Sano froze in shock bewilderment --- his mind whirling with confusion, unable to grasp this new reality.  
  
"No, ahou, I was wrong...you were never weak...a rooster head yes, but never weak," a soft baritone sounded by his ear, " you're never daunted at all...life has knocked you on your ass time and again but you always bounce back with fists flying, eh?" continued the voice, the speaker's arms and body pinioning him against the hard railing.  
  
There was a long silence, both figures lost in their thoughts, each marveling at this new and unexpected situation.  
  
" Ah, 'jime you asshole!!!Where have you been?! I've been torturing myself for nothing!!! Bastard...I should..." Sano whispered harshly still not sure that he wasn't dreaming.  
  
"Should what?Do this...and this..." came the taunting reply.  
  
Saitoh nuzzled his neck, leaving little bite marks around his collarbone while pressing his lower abdomen against Sano.  
  
"Shit man...do you think you can just disappear without a word and expect to come back and pick up where we left off?" Sano huffed indignantly.  
  
"Yes. Do you have any problem with that?"  
  
"I should...I know I should do somethin' but I can't think of anything specific right now...ahhh...harder 'Jime...can we...can we continue this somewhere else? People won't really understand why we're doing this on the bridge!" moaned Sanosuke.  
  
Saitoh loosened his hold on Sano and the latter was finally able to see his amber eyed lover. Saitoh looked the same ---still tall, rangy, with menacingly chiseled features and that maddeningly self-assured smirk on his face but he was also slightly thinner as if he too, was suffering some nameless torment. Without warning, Sano reached out and hugged his silent wolf, firmly, putting all his emotions in that single embrace.  
  
" I miss you so much 'jime... can't forget you...I tried, so damn hard! Please don't leave me again...I don't want to be alone again...." he pleaded hoarsely.  
  
He wasn't expecting any response from the silent swordsman. Saitoh being Saitoh, would rather die a painful death than show any vulnerability. Sano started to slowly slide his arms off his lover, embarrassed by his display of naked emotion, when he suddenly let out a startled huffed, feeling as if his ribs were crushed when two powerful arms wound tight around him.  
  
Saitoh had returned his embrace with equal ferocity not saying anything but Sano could feel the response of his lover in that tight clinched. No words were spoken --- but for him, the warmth of that fierce embrace says it all... and for now, it's quite enough.  
  
*************************************  
"You'd love me you said. Yes, you and guilt, tabernacle of gold  
teeth and the cantor inside, singing over and over, thou shalt not.  
I take your wrist…You lean close, stroke my chest. Forget?---yes.  
Just bite me, bite me. Don't let go." --------Ai  
*************************************  
  
OWARI ^-^  
  
Note: Hope you like it...if you have any suggestions or comments please write to cherryblossoms_78@yahoo.com  
I would love to hear from you!   
This fic is a Valentines gift to my friends (my first critics and staunch supporters (???)---ana, cel and clyde) and especially to Katz-chan who's just been newly converted to you-know-what (ha!ha!ha!). I'm a bad friend, ne??!! 


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